"Nobody wants to be the videogame guy. Or, more to the point, nobody wants to talk to the videogame guy. And, worse than that, I’m the videogame guy who thinks they’ve an interesting enough topic for a doctoral thesis. In dinner party stakes, I’m only a few steps up from the editor of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Philosophy or someone who writes Star Wars fan fiction."

Songs To Test By "Whether you're a mega-science corporation with decades of test experience, or a young start-up liberating your first test subject from non-testing with a chloroform-soaked rag, Aperture guarantees results. Wake up your test subject, open the chamber door, and press play--let Aperture's patent-pending rhythmic compliance enhancers do the rest." Volume 1 of the Portal 2 soundtrack, free for download.

Freedom Bridge is a Flash game, sort of, about the 'Freedom Bridge' across the Imjin River between North and South Korea. Whatever it is, it's memorable. It's one of Jordan Magnuson's Necessary Games, some of which are arguable neither necessary nor games, but almost all of which are interesting in some way. Magnuson is creating computer games based on his ongoing world travel.

Minecraft videos are starting to reach TF2-levels of grooviness. This one is like that -- it gets better as time goes on, and includes some nice use of a) the acid-trip shaders and b) a pig's bottom. [via]

Submissions for IndieCade -- the International Festival of Independent Games from October 6-9, 2011 in Culver City California -- are now open. IndieCade welcomes games of all genres, types, formats, and encourages works-in-progress. Some video from the 2010 event.

As we mark the 10th anniversary of Douglas Adams' untimely death, RPS has a nice retrospective on the maddening, wonderful Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy text adventure. You can play the original online here or an updated, graphics-added version here.

Preview gag-orders have apparently been lifted for the upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and the usual suspects are peeing their pants with excitement. This is a good thing, you know, except for the soggy pants.

"To support games designed for longevity – that can be learned, played and shared for hundreds of years – we offer this challenge to any game designers, artists and imaginative people who also share this desire." Thousand dollar prize winner is to be chosen January 1st, 2012, and entrance is open until July 31 2011. Some recent entries here. Inspired by the Long Now Foundation and the X Prize.

Dan Cook said : "Unlike a decade ago, there is now an absolute deluge of essays being written about games. Most of it is a waste of my time as someone who wants to see games improve." Worm can status: opened. [via, with commentary]

Extreme Portalcraft is a Minecraft mod that lets you craft portals in mines, or mine crafts to make portals, or port your mine craftily or something. It looks pretty cool, and you can already download a couple of levels for it. [via]

"I would like to try to impart my love for one of the oldest, and most impenetrable, and aesthetically unattractive, and sociopathic and schizophrenic genres of computer game to a reader who will doubtlessly hate it for all of those exact reasons. I’m talking about rogue-likes..."

Freeman's Mind Episode 32 has been released. On the off chance that you haven't been following this legitimately hilarious journey through Half Life 1 inside the head of the no-longer-silent Gordon Freeman, you really should start now. It's worth it.

What Is Gamefilter?

Gamefilter is a community weblog based in spirit and intent on the great work of Matt Haughey and his staff at Metafilter. It's all about sharing links to interesting stuff on the web, but with a narrower focus on gaming-related links -- good stuff that other people might not have already seen -- and talking about them.

Anyone can join for the low low price of zero dollars, and once you're a member, you have the senses-shattering power to post new stuff right from the front end of the site, and talk about that stuff in the comment threads. You don't need an account to read GFi, but as well as giving you The Power To Post, membership also lets you

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